Fundamentally, I believe dev communities should (and can) be gathering everywhere worldwide. This article is part of a series to share the knowledge I’ve gained from years of hosting developer events — from small local meetups to internationally renowned conferences.

So far in our series we’ve covered organizing a Minimum Viable Meetup and Booking Meetup Speakers. Let’s progress to the next step which is getting sponsors for your event.

Asking for sponsorship can feel intimidating, especially if this is your first meetup, but getting sponsors doesn’t have to be a shot in the dark. We’ll walk through the process of building trust, understanding value, and being thoughtful with your approach in order to increase success. Here’s what I’ve learned about sponsorships from organizing meetups and conferences like React Miami, and how you can apply it to your event.

Where to Find Sponsors

The grand majority of sponsorships I’ve received have come from personal and professional relationships. This is largely because when a company puts their money toward an event they want to trust that it will be used appropriately and bring them value. The easiest way to trust an event is to trust the person running it.

Reach out to the people you know in the ecosystem that you think make sense to sponsor your event. Choose a few people intentionally and craft personalized messages versus spamming everyone in your contacts with a generic message. Tell your friends and colleagues that you’re looking for sponsors as well. They may know people in their network who can vouch for you.

Building Relationships
If you don’t know anyone who can sponsor yet, you can begin building your relationships by going to other events and meeting people there. This is also a good way to see what other events are offering sponsors and what’s valuable to companies (more on that later). Nothing beats face-to-face, so if you can make it out to the other events, the better results you will have.

In addition to in person networking, you can post your event and call for sponsors on platforms like Twitter/X and LinkedIn where companies are engaged with the community. Look at other meetups in your domain and see who’s sponsoring them. Companies like Storyblok are based in Europe, but invested in sponsoring community events around the world. Poke around and see who else is interested in supporting local events.

If you have a website, place a form there for interested companies to connect with you. This way you don’t miss any opportunities in between your planned outreach.

Local Offices
Reach out to local companies with offices to see if they will allow you to use their space to host your meetup. This is a form of sponsorship. If they agree to this, they may also be willing to sponsor the additional costs as well. It’s always worth an ask!

Cold Outreach
You are welcome to try cold outreach, but I don’t typically recommend it unless you know the company is actively looking for events to sponsor. Anecdotally, cold outreach this has never been fruitful for me. At first I thought it was my strategy that was failing, but year 3 of React Miami we had a few of our team members at G2i give it a shot as well and nothing came from it. It’s better to spend your time developing relationships and finding more intentional avenues.

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Starting with the relationships you already have is your best path to success!

How to Price Your Meetup

Most companies are expecting to pay less than $500 to sponsor a meetup, and usually it’s more like $250-$300. I’ll break this down…

Since meetups are often after work, it’s best to provide some drinks and food, however you are not responsible for providing a whole dinner. Keep per person costs low and try not to over provision food and beverage quantities.

How to Order F&B ⬇️
My formula for catering is number of attendees x 1.5 = quantity to provide

For example, for a 20-ish person meetup, three 12-packs of various beverages is usually sufficient. I’ll do 1 case of sparkling/still water, 1 case of soda, and 1 case of beer. You can completely forego beer if you’d like a non-alcoholic event, many people aren’t drinking as much anyway.

For my meetup “Let Me Show You Something” I typically order 3 dozen empanadas, however pizza is always a crowd favorite, too, and you can order about 4 of those to feed everyone.

Venue Costs
Occasionally there are fees for venue rentals or venue security. Since these costs are variable, it may double your meetup costs. Most sponsors don’t mind covering these fees so long as they’re communicated clearly and they expect them.

Additional Value
If your meetup is famous beyond your region or you have a huge following, you do have the possibility to boost sponsorship amount with regards to visibility. This value will likely be for online promotion leading up to the event. When to do this and how much to ask is a process of experimentation, but for reference, I do not factor this in for my meetups. If I were someone as notable as Wes Bos though, I may consider it.

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You should be able to explain your sponsorship ask and keep it aligned with the scale of the event.

What to Offer

When creating your offer, I recommend building a pre-designed package with room for customization. Making a decision on a sponsorship is easier for a company when the value is outlined and clear.

Here are a few things that are typical to offer:

Logo on slides
Logo on registration/event page
A social post that recognizes their sponsorship
Option to send swag or stickers for attendees
Mention in any event-related emails

Some optional sponsorship perks can include:

2-minute intro talk if they’re in person
Quick video message if remote
Logo on printed agenda (if applicable)

In my experience, most companies purchase a sponsorship package as-is. Although it’s common for a company to ask you for things that you didn’t include, so you need to decide what’s negotiable or not. This brings us to attendee information.

Attendee Data Privacy
Almost every company is going to ask you for a list of attendees. I’ve never provided this and no one has had an issue with it. It’s very valuable for a company to get this, but it’s never been a deal breaker for my events. If you don’t want to provide attendee data, then communicate that confidently and clearly. You can also suggest alternative ways for sponsors to connect with attendees, such as attending themselves or providing a promo offer for their product.

Many events, however, do provide sponsors or hosting venues with attendee data which is quite common. My recommendation is that if you know this is your arrangement, give attendees the option to opt-out of sharing their information, or inform them of this agreement during the registration process. This way they can make a decision to attend with all pertinent details in mind.

Discovery
The easiest way to make sure you’re providing value to sponsors is to ask them what they want.

During your sponsorship conversation, ask:

What would a successful outcome look like for you?

Many companies will say they just want brand awareness, which is great! However, others may be hoping to meet potential hires or drive developers to a specific product. Knowing this helps you tailor the package for highest impact.

Vibe Check
Just because someone gives you money doesn’t mean they run the show. Better to go through the work of finding another sponsor than allow a potential sponsor degrade the quality of your event. Ten minute product pitches kill the vibe. There are more elegant and appropriate ways to promote a sponsor that don’t lose your audience.

Oftentimes potential sponsors are not trying to take over your event when they ask for things that you don’t necessarily want to offer. Their ask is usually a combination of not fully understanding your audience and “if you don’t ask, the answer’s always no” mentality. Neither of these things are ill-intentioned. It’s your role as organizer to explain why you don’t offer certain perks or advise against them.

For example, in the year 2025 sponsored talks tend to do more brand damage than good. Attendees are really sensitive to this format and a lot of companies haven’t realized this yet. Knowing this, it’s my responsibility to share that with companies and help find something that will satisfy their hoped-for outcomes.

With this in mind, there are certain things you never want to offer or promise. One of those things is customers. It’s true you have a room full of potential customers for them, but it’s their job to have those conversations and convert. You are not a member of their sales team, and you don’t want to burden yourself with the stress of making a sale in the hopes to fulfill a sponsorship agreement.

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Maintain the quality of your event while still delivering sponsor value.

How to Make the Ask

When you ask a company to sponsor your meetup you want to be prepared for the conversation that follows and all potential outcomes.

Building a Package
What you’re offering is only one part of the sponsorship package. This includes things like logo placement and networking opportunities that we discussed above.

A few other items you want to include (or be prepared to share) are:

Demographic Data — “Who attends your event?” This is inevitably one of the first questions a company will ask you. Provide whatever you can. For my meetup, I only share that our audience is largely comprised of professional working developers in South Florida. For React Miami, I share a breakdown of job titles, seniority, general location, company size, and industry. The more you can share (without revealing PII) the better.
Social Proof — Collect tweets, Instagram posts, and LinkedIn posts that praise your event. If attendees share any positive feedback or testimonials, you can share these anonymously as well!
About the Event — This is one of the more obvious points that can be often missed. What is the purpose of this event? What is the format? If there’s a mission and vision, share those too.
About YOU! — Yes, you have to talk about yourself! Remember, companies trust events more easily when they trust the organizer. Do you have experience in events? Are you a developer yourself? Explain why you’re qualified to run this event and what skills you have to ensure it’s successful.

Outreach
When deciding how to reach out to someone, choose the channel most natural for your relationship with the company point-of-contact.

If you are messaging someone you already know and you always talk in Twitter DM’s, then reach out on Twitter. Otherwise, email is usually the most common approach.

What to include in your message:

What the event is (topic, vibe)
Where and when it’s happening
Who it’s for and expected number of attendees
Why their company might be a good fit for sponsorship
General sponsorship pricing

Always be honest and transparent. If this is your first event, say that. If you only have 20 people attending, don’t tell the company 75. These details are less consequential than you think, and are usually only asked to understand the event better. Demonstrating trustworthiness and honesty is far more consequential when assessing sponsorship for a company.

NOTE: If anything materially changes between what you presented to a sponsor and what is actually happening with the event, communicate that as soon as possible. For example, if a sponsor thinks they are backing a 100-person event and only 5 people are registered, share this information immediately. Most companies understand events don’t always turn out as planned. They will appreciate the transparency and will likely work with you on a reasonable next step.

Rejection or Non-Response
The more you put yourself out there the more rejection will happen! It’s inevitable! So let’s frame this constructively:

First, try to follow up once or twice to make sure your message was seen, or remind them to respond. If there’s still no answer, move on to approaching another company. Company’s are more likely to sponsor when they have time to prepare for the spend, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket, reach out to multiple companies from the start.

Don’t take rejection personally, it’s not about you, and you can learn a lot from the rejection. If a company turns down your sponsorship, try to find out why. Is it priced too high? Will it take too long to get approval from finance? Does what you’re offering bring value to them? Understanding why you were rejected can help you make a better package. Also, “no” today doesn’t mean “no” forever. Handle the rejection gracefully and leave the door open for a future partnership.

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Prepare for an end-to-end conversation before you ask for sponsorship to ensure a smooth and polished experience.

Post-Event

After the event you want to close the loop with your sponsors.

If you opted to be reimbursed for food and supplies (vs receiving a set amount of funds ahead of time), be prepared to submit an invoice or receipts if necessary. FWIW, I usually prefer to be reimbursed after an event so sponsors pay the most accurate amount for event costs. This does run the risk of having to chase down sponsors for payment. Fortunately, I have never had that experience with a meetup.

Send a thank you email to your sponsors with some information about the event. You can let them know how it went, how many people attended, share some stories and photos, and whatever else you want to add. I also like to publicly thank them again on social media after the event.

Final Thoughts

While finding sponsors can feel difficult or intimidating, this is a skill you can develop and master. Remember, start with the relationships you already have and always aim to provide value and transparency. Sponsors aren’t just buying brand exposure, they’re trusting you with their brand. Be someone who follows through, communicates clearly, and respects that responsibility.

You don’t need to be a sponsorship expert. You just need to be honest, thoughtful, and community-minded. Sponsors want to support people who care, and if that’s you, then you’re already most of the way there.

Go build something awesome — and don’t forget to thank your sponsors!

What’s Next?

If you like this post or have questions, please feel free to share here! I would love to hear what you think and what you want to learn about next.

Some upcoming posts I’ll be writing include:

Stepping up your event — booking venues…
Running an event — agendas, atmosphere, set up…
Overcoming failure — aka no one showing up, things going awry…

Getting Meetup Sponsors

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